The business, clientele and scruples of Jehan Bierenghier, a usurer in Tournai († 1305). Lending and usury in Tournai in the 13th and early 14th centuries

In 1305, the financier Jehan Bierenghier wrote a will on chirograph, appended with a list of the 590 clients of his lending office. The purpose of this list was so that his estate could refund the usury that the financier had forced them to pay. An analysis of this remarkable list, as well as of the information in the will itself, enables us to reconstruct, in striking detail, the social ‘portrait’, networks, and mercantile and financial activities of a wealthy man, between the city and the countryside. This source also enables us to identify the place held by this usurer within the complex web of lending in a major city of the Southern Low countries.